


Gathering Fruit

by MrMissMrsRandom



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Collections of short fics from Valentia week, Decadence has implied steaminess as a heads up, Gen, Multi, Pregnancy, The characters listed are the ones where the prompt is told from their prespective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 19:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14315835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMissMrsRandom/pseuds/MrMissMrsRandom
Summary: A collection of tales set before and after the War of Valentian Unification.





	1. Decadence- Lukas/Forsyth/Python

Forsyth was finding himself quite enjoying his and Lukas’s furlough from active duty. They had made it to Python’s settlement with two bottles of semi-fine wine two days ago, then when Python was off duty promptly drank it all and had a fine few rolls in the hay from it. So much so he almost asked Python if he would return to the Brotherhood. But then the morning came with Python waking up first and walking out the door for his shift with minimal grouching, and Forsyth decided that the frontier was doing him better than he first thought.

However, after those two days of blissful indulgence, Forsyth found that he was growing antsy.

“Should we check if they need an extra hand on patrols?” Forsyth asked against Lukas’s hairline. The two were taking in some sun in front of Python’s cabin, Lukas sitting in his lap and reading a book he had brought along. Forsyth still wondered the gradual journey Lukas had traveled to be comfortable with this level of intimacy.

“Python said that recruits need the experience,” Lukas said as he flipped the page. “Besides, you already offered for us to help them with training exercises later.”

Forsyth sighed, wrapping his arms around Lukas’s waist and leaning his forehead again the back of his shoulder. “ I know.”

Lukas reached back and tangled his fingers into Forsyth’s hair. “Its hard to relax when we live a life like ours, but sometimes it’s necessary.”

Forsyth leaned into the touch. Damn, Python was, unfortunately, right. He was a bit too high strung.

“We can spar later,” Lukas promised, knowing that that was Forsyth’s type of indulgence.

“Well aren’t you two a pretty picture.” Python drawled as he walked up, carrying a bowl filled with some fruit Forsyth didn’t recognize. “Scoot over.”

Lukas made room for Python to pull his legs over Forsyth’s right, the presented the bowl. “Cherry season, eat up but mind the pit.”

So the three of them feasted, and once the annoyance of sticky fingers and spitting the small stone seed was handled, Forsyth greatly enjoyed how the fruit dyed mouths and made lips sweeter.


	2. Ocean- Boey/Mae

The journey from old Zofia harbor back to Novis was uneventful. No terrors, necrodragons or pirates to speak of. Nomah has gone back some months before, while Genny decided to stay in the new capital to research her novel for a while yet. Boey and Mae were returning alone like they had promised that one day on the battlefield near the end of Celica’s pilgrimage.

“Hey Boey, you’re glad to be going back right?” Mae asked softly as the two of them leaned against the railing and looked at how the setting sun reflected on the ocean waves.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Boey replied.

“I mean, this isn’t… this isn’t disappointing you or anything? I mean, you could’ve lived it up in the capital,” Mae began, showing an uncharacteristic amount of self-doubt. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Boey responded to the question by reaching for Mae’s hand a gripping it firmly in his. “Anywhere you go is where I want to be.”

Mae didn’t respond verbally to his bold response, but she did smile and keep holding his hand as the sun gave her face a rosy hue.


	3. Piety- Sonya

Sonya still had marks on her knees from when she had been forced to kneel and pray for hours at the priory where she had been raised.

She didn’t find them too irritating: her boots covered up any visible blemish. Even most of those hours were wiled away with secret looks and messages between her and her sisters. When they commenced a hymn to honor Duma, Hestia made imaginative faces that to any other onlooker might be religious ecstasy, but Sonya could tell by the crinkle of her nose and the gleam in her eye they were a performance of piety.

 

Sometimes they would get caught and reprimanded, but never too much due to their father’s high position. They would only be forced to kneel longer, asking an effigy for forgiveness. Sonya always crossed her fingers.

In all honesty, she could never find true ardor for the War Father. She only found true piety to a cause when she escaped through a crawl space behind the altar when her blood father returned one last time, and Marla and Hestia didn’t follow.

Grief and Fury were all the gods she needed.


	4. Mercy- Rudolf

Rudolf remembered the last time he spoke with the War Father when the god was still in his right mind. Duma was still in human guise, but the He was already having difficulty retaining his form as he spoke, his skin shifting shades and one big scar that was looking more and more like an eyelid coming from his forehead.

“Rudolf, take the Falchion. Please… don’t allow my sister to fall the way that I have.”

It was then with a heavy heart that Rudolf promised him that he would enact this mercy. A mere few weeks later, Duma remained sequestered in his tower, while a trail of young women lead by members of the Faithful followed.

Rudolf knee he would have to prepare not only his empire but the entirety of Valentia to live in a world without their gods. He had to perform sacrilege after sacrilege to do so.

When the time came for him to be struck down, the final test for his son before facing the mad god that Duma became, it was the sweetest mercy Rudolf could ever know.


	5. Darkness and Light- Clive

The war was won and the land had been restored. Mathilda and Clair had been rescued and fought by his side once more. Clive had gotten everything he could have wished for, and his future held so much promise and light it was nearly blinding.

There was, however, one black spot.

“Here should be good. The ground doesn’t look frozen.” Mathilda said once they reached a low hill in the valleys around Rigel Castle. Clair was circling around the area from the skies and began to descend. Once she landed, the three of them went to the cart Mathilda and Clive had commandeered for their quest. They grabbed shovels and began to dig.

This was the first time Clive had ever done this himself. By this point, he had overseen a near dozen funerals within the Deliverance, but he had never had to measure and then make a hole deep enough so the body couldn’t easily be disturbed. Even in the chilly air, Clive felt sweat fall down his face and sink into his clothes.

But they had to do this: no one else would claim the body save for them.

Once Mathilda pat his back to let him know they had gone deep enough, they both helped each other out of the hole, then together lifted Clair out. Clive went back to the cart and carefully picked up the enshrouded body inside. Mathilda offered to help, but Clive shook his head. This was his burden to bear.

It was a minimal struggle- without his armor, Fernand wasn’t all that heavy- and then he was deposited into his final resting place. Clair said a few words but stumbled on beseeching Mila’s care in returning her child to the earth. The old prayers were now as dead as the gods for them all.

Afterward, they silently filled up the hole and pat it flat. They had nothing for a grave marker, but Clive hoped that he would remember the spot. He told himself he would, as all three returned to their horses and made their way back to the castle.


	6. Magic- Delthea

When she and Lu returned to their home village, Delthea felt a strong sense of disappointment. 

Don’t get her wrong, she was happy to be back: the normal sites and sounds were actually a comfort after months on the road with the Deliverance. They were given a heroes welcome on their return, and nearly half of the older matrons shoved her head in their bosoms wailing about Tatarrah’s kidnapping. Delthea took it all with a smile, hiding her own lack of knowledge of the event, and honestly preferring to keep that door to her memories tightly sealed.

After two years of living the same old life, however, the quaintness of the village once more lost its charm. She could tell it had the same effect on Lu, who began to spend an inordinate amount of time staring out at the horizon beyond the trees that framed their home. He didn’t even nag her as much as he used to- she had mastered Ragnarok over the course of the war, the mythic spell that was a gift from the Mother herself. Of what they knew of the magic of old Zofia, he had nothing left to teach her. 

So when she received a letter from Clair asking if she would like to be introduced to Valentian high society, Delthea knew what she had to do. On a day Luthier would be out doing errands, she left a note explaining herself (she knew better now after her last disappearance), then went deep into the woodlands to visit the village elder. 

After the usual pleasantries with the old coot, Delthea sat on her knees with her head held high. 

“Gramps, do you know how you can seal someone’s magic?”


	7. Gods and Men- Jesse

The last thing Jesse can remember is the sticky warmth of his own blood as it pools under his back. That was in the dueling arena on dry dirt, nothing like the plush grass he now finds himself lying on.

He gingerly flexes his hands before resting them against his stomach to find his wound gone.

“What an incredibly reckless way to fall.” A commanding yet womanly voice fell into his thoughts. The sound was familiar, but only when he had gone with his dearly departed mother to pray as a boy or nights when the winds across the desert ceased their howl.

“Well, you know me,” Jesse replies as he struggles to sit up. “I’m a pretty reckless guy.”

The divine dragon that appeared before him was enormous, but even when resting her claws on the ground, they didn’t disturb a blade of grass or a single wildflower. Rather, they appeared to grow and encircle them, as if reaching out to caress her.

Mila, if she could in her form, laughs. “That you are. So, what would you prefer this time? To return, or to stay?”

Jesse reaches out for Mila and finds an elegantly shaped and similarly clawed hand offered to him, as she changes to her human form. He remains his knees as he holds her hand in his, before bowing down to kiss it.

“As always I’m your plaything, Mila.” Jesse answers.

Jesse then woke up in an infirmary in extreme pain, with the sound of laughter echoing in his ear.


	8. Flower- Liprica

Liprica was confined to her bed on healer’s orders during the last stages of her pregnancy due to her poor health. Part of her was relieved at the choice since that kept Lima from being interested in visiting her. It gave her a peace she hadn’t known for months. 

It was unbearably lonely at times, though. The servants were forbidden from chatting with her, and it made her miss the closeness she experienced living in Mila’s Temple. Liprica had been tempted to request Irma be sent as her personal handmaiden, but then feared that she would catch the lascivious eye of Lima, and be trapped in the seraglio just as she had. She settled for exchanging letters instead. As her health began to deteriorate, she knew that she would probably never return.

Those long hours with nothing to stare at but the ornately painted ceiling gave her time to think. Even if she could return, a darker side of Liprica’s mind hissed, she could never bow to the Mother again. The Mother had forsaken her in order to keep Lima placated. A lowly priestess had no say compared to a king, even in the eyes of a goddess.

At least Lady Maxine paid her regular visits with her own child in tow, a sweet little boy with kind eyes. He usually brought her flowers from the seraglio garden. During these visits, Maxine would hold her hand. Out of the entire seraglio, Liprica felt that only Maxine could understand how she felt. Neither had come here by choice. She was the one that held her hand all throughout the intense labor, even when it probably felt like her fingers would break under the grip and ears bleed from the screams. Liprica hated childbirth almost as much as she hated Lima and Mila and the world.

It was surprising when all that hate ebbed away when she heard a baby’s strong cries. Only peace, then exhaustion. When she woke up, the baby was placed into her arms, with reassurances from the midwife- “A girl. A strong one at that. She’s a fighter, your Grace. And… her palm has…”

Liprica simply nodded in response and ignored the rest of the words, looking down at the new little life. She already had a full head of hair on her forehead. It smelled of warm and comforting things. Liprica pressed her nose gently against the baby’s forehead. She decided then and there that she would love the child. No matter how much fate had damned her, she decided that this child would be worth it.

“What should we call her, your Grace?” Liprica turned her eyes to the bushel of flowers at her bedside, in full bloom.

“Anthiese.”


End file.
